Philip Skippon's "Description of Florence" (1664) in: Philipp Skippon: "An account of a journey made thro’ part of the Low-Countries, Germany, Italy and France", in: "A collection of voyages and travels, some now printed from original manuscripts, others now first published in English (...)", second edition, volume VI (London 1746) (FONTES 51)

Translation of abstract (English)

Attention was first drawn to Philip Skippon’s (1641-1691) vivid "Account of the journey he made through the Low Countries, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and France between 1663 and 1666" by Ludwig Schudt, who wrote of the young English botanist’s open eye for places and people and for his interest in the urban fabric, monuments, inscriptions, churches, palaces and gardens and their works of art, in collections of art and artefacts, curiosites and rarities, in machines and instruments, in government and in the customs and habits of the people. Skippon provides a long and informative description of the city of Florence, which, like a similarly neglected description by Heinrich von Huyssen (Fontes 44), is a valuable addition and complement to the frequently somewhat lifeless guide literature to the city. Skippon’s account, like Huyssen’s, also provides a picture of the political, economic, social and scholarly context in which works of art and artefacts were created, collected, studied and evaluated. The entirety of his descriptions of the collections in Europe, which he zealously visited and inventoried together with his travelling companions, represents an invaluable documentation in attempts to define in a precise and differentiated way the Kunst- und Wunderkammern of the seventeenth century.